


The Setup

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Favors, Getting Together, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:32:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5759590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max is followed, Johnny has a favor to ask, and they somehow sit at a cafe with heart shaped chairs</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Setup

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the current updates and me having far too much fun with this

Max had the unmistakable feeling he was being followed. But not smart-followed or clever-followed or even creepy-followed, like stupid knock-it-off you obvious freaks followed.

He’d give you two guesses to who it is. Three of them would be wrong, but the last one definitely pointed to a certain flame headed local bully™ trailing him.

Max wasn’t having any of it.

“Hey!” He calls over his shoulder. “Hey!” He repeats with as much gravel in his voice he could manage without eating a playground.

The figures disappear behind him, probably in some sort of friendship formation of ‘snake-retreat-alpha’ or whatever they called them...which was weird, not the second thing but the retreating thing.

Max just snorts and stands a little taller, his tough kid demeanor finally was coming through. Learn their place.

He makes his way down the twisting roads, taking a different route to maybe throw them off and only getting mildly turned around, as in he finds himself on a strip of small shop...that was normal right?

Kids shopped after school and 100% get lost on their way back from school all the time, he reassured himself.

Besides. It wasn't like he was alone.

He goes into a dimly lit music shop that would resemble a moody-grimace-with-heavy-eyeliner if it had a face. A punchable face.

It was also a perfect place to watch the door and see his pursuers enter the one-way entrance. It was perfect, intelligence: +10, cool fight music: +20, he was ready.

Though the music was actually more like whining people slowly turning into distraught lawn mowers.

Johnny and his J gang take their sweet time as Max and the cashier share a truly important moment where she questions if Max was about to steal anything and Max tries not to look like a non-suspicious youth.

An annoying endeavor fraught with keeping his hands out of his pockets and holding back on his hobbies of smirking and glaring.

Johnny showed up ten minutes into the stand off, almost catching Max off guard, but Max is quick on his feet.

“Aha!” Max pushes a rack of CDs over on the quartet and leaps over them. “You are actually following me.”

Johnny, who had the dodged the onslaught blinked up at him.

“What the heck man?” Stephan pushes an Evanescence CD off of him as the rack knocked him and RJ over.

However, the group manages to stand back up and approach slowly. They make a fabric weaving machine and loom over him. Maybe he hadn’t thought this through.

“Will you kids _stop it_?” The cashier had finally stepped in, the boys and non-binary freeze and sheepishly give the thumbs up to the adult with a cell phone in her hand.

They sneak out the front door.

“What was that for dude?” Stephan glares at him, “are you losing your mind or…” he mumbles something about possessions and exorcism.

“ME? You guys trailed me...And look, I don't even have any money to be bullied out of.” He shows them his pockets.

“I’m not here for petty cash.” Johnny poses dramatically while the gang frame him, Max’s mouth hangs open and stares dead pan into the sun.

“How generous.” He hoped his sarcasm would reach a new level, get a degree, a nice job, a house with a lawn.

“Precisely young Max.”

“What do you waaaant?” He gripes.

“Here,” Johnny steps aside, “come into my office.”

Max glances at the little fence around a couple frilly tables, “that is literally an outdoor cafe.” He asserts blandly.

“Sit down. Order something. We’ll pay...if it is below fifty cents.” Max tries to deny this is happening to him, that he had not tried to take new way home, that he was not sitting across from Johnny and his friends. That he was not sitting down on an 'adorable' tiny chair.

“What do you want?”

Johny taps his fingers together, “I owe you from hitball.”

Max perks up, “I’m aware.”

“What do want?”

Max shrugs, “seriously? You couldn’t ask that at school.?” He grumbles.

“Caring about anything on school property is against my policy. Now,” he suddenly flares up, “answer the question!”

Max sighs deeply, “I don’t know. I haven’t got any nerds to noogie or grudges against private property I need vandalized.”

Johny seems confused by some of those words but forges on, “pick something.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No!” His eyes bulge.

“Wow,” Max gets up, “this is some stimulating conversation,” he moves to turn around, “but we look like the worst five way date at a cute cafe.”

“Good.”

“What?”

“Sit down Maxamucus.” Johnny pats the table.

Max groans out loud.

Ollie stands up and blocks Max's retreat, Max heaves another sigh and takes his seat at the tiny white chairs shaped like hearts.

“I need a favor.”

“That’s my line,” Max can feel a vein actively popping out of his head.

“Come on, a trade.”

“Trade you what?”

“I have a list of our skill sets.” RJ presents Max with a long series of detailed good works like ‘stealing gold stars,’ and ‘expert hair dying.’

“No.”

“Come again?”

“Most of these are misspelled and two are just pictures of you, have you been taking Isaac's art classes?”

“He showed me how to do the eyes.” Ollie points at the sparkles.

“Concentrate!”

“I too have a list of what I am willing to do for you too.” Max takes the sheet of paper and draws on it, then passes it back over with a smirk of an angel.

The gang examines it, “This is a picture of a butt.”

Johnny's crew snicker at it like middle schoolers, which made sense.

“Go out with me.”

That gets Max’s attention, “what?"

Johnny nods solemnly.

"To like the junk yard?" He folds his arms across his chest and leans back for effect, "You are trashy enough without me there.”  
  
"Pun noted." Johnny looks him in the eye, he pulls out a flyer, “Date. Me.”

Max looks around wildly, “okay. Where is Punk’d? Because I’m about to mess up Ashton’s Kutcher's face.”

Johnny slides a plastic flower in his direction.

A beat passes, Max's brain tries to catch up in this marathon of absurdity. He did not understand Johnny.

He comes to his sense, “I’m not taking the bent flower!” Max pushes it away, finally losing his ‘cool’ demeanor, “and I’m not the girl.”

“Johnny will also accept flowers from you as well.” Ollie says like a business man.

“Okay, this is a fun alternate universe.” Max can feel his brains leaking out his ears, “but I’m having trouble justifying this. Do you remember the tomato soup thing?”

  
"I still remember. The void of tomato smelling red follows me like a my dead grandma's ghost. I am not done bullying you, rest-assured.”

“Slow down there Romeo.”

“However. I would like to date.”

Max wants to parkour his way out this situation, it didn’t help his palms were sweating, he would yell at them if that wouldn’t make him look insane. And his heart beat that raced like a the tick-tock of a bomb timer.

First time being asked out and it was the school bully. Stupid, that was stupid.

“Sorry. My dad doesn’t let me date meat heads.” He smirks at them until he notices Johnny's posse giving him the evil eye, he sits a little lower in his chair, “also I need a better reason then ‘you did a cool hitball trick,”

“Sacrifice.”

His face glows, “it wasn’t self-sacrifice...I mean it was, but I think you’re getting that mixed up with flirting. That’s the thing with fighting a crazed nerd and not the thing with like eyes and mouths,” Max started gesturing around to demonstrate flirting. Which he had no idea what that was.

“I am going to beat Cody. Also, I like how stupid you are.”

Max freezes in place, this was weirder than seeing the specters. It was like cloud nine weird. Cloud ten, where there are no more clouds and just Johnny.

“Wait? Cody?”

Johny rips up the pieces of paper in his hands, “I. Will. Date. First!”

“It is our new form of bullying.” Ollie explains. "Beating someone... _symbolically_."

Max catches himself nodding along and then wants to slap himself, then he blinks in realization, “Cody likes me?”  
  
“What?” Johny looks back at him back at him, “no. Absolutely not.”

“Oh. Wow. Don’t put it nicely there.”  
  
“I like you.” Max wants to die. But that is the most sincere words he heard since Izzy was honest with him about his cooking skills (terrible).

“Anyway. I’m going to date first, see you Saturday, wear whatever you want.”

The group gets up and pats Max on the back as they leave as he sits awestruck at the tiny couples cafe.

“We’ll pick you up at 12.”

“We?” That snaps Max out of it, “I’m not going to date all four of you!”

Johnny waves him off, and somehow Max gets a date he never asked for.

He balls up his fists, “okay! You’ll owe me like at least three favors then.” He calls after them, they give him a thumbs up, and then Max thinks he just accepted said date.

He hits his face with his palm. Ugh.

“Wait!” He calls after them, “do you know the way back?”

Too late, they were gone.

Max stews in his own series of events, time to get a better life, trade in for Nikes or a cool hat or something.

He contemplates buying flowers since he was _not_ the girl here. And he is somehow getting ready for a first date. He makes it home after some extended amount of walking around.

“How was your day son?” His dad chirps at him as he gets to the corner shop. Home.

“Good. Bad."

"Why do you have flowers?"

He contemplates not telling them.

"Are they for me? For best father?" His dad dramatically accepts.

"No." Max retorts flatly. His sister enters the room too and they exchange concerned looks.

"...I have a date. Soon.” He grunts before they make any more weird assumptions.

His father predictably flips the entire counter over.

“My child.” He cries real tears and rolls on the floor. “Growing up.”

Max looks at his feet.

“Who is it with? That Izzy girl?” His sister asks with some excitement to her voice.

“How did you meet?” He can hear his friendly room-ghost asking.

“The school bully.” He relents. His family faces falls, “I ran over his face on my first day, did some cool hitball trick, and now he wants to date.”  
  
Max goes to his room.

“Well.” His father calls after him, “whatever you like son! We’ll have ‘the talk,”

“I'll pay you good money not to.”

“Though,” his father looks contemplative, then he excitably pulls out a pen and paper from his fatherly handbook, “I’ll have to revise it!”

Max gets to his room and buries his face in his pillow.

Saturday. His phone lit up from his pocket, it said, ‘i got ur #’

Max sighs and texts back, ‘this is dominoes. We are no longer taking orders tonight.’

‘w/e, know its u, suzy gave it to me’

‘how??’ He pauses and then types again, ‘actually i dont want to know’

‘good. also i told her abut sat.’ Max groaned, his phone buzzes again, ‘c u then’ it came with an emoji. A smiley one.

  
Max doesn’t have a heart aneurysm. He swears.

His brain wanders to outside his comfort zone. He'd never thought about dating or crushes much before. Flowers. Food. Lips, mouths, red hair at his fingertips. He stops himself there by pinching his arm.

"Knock it off," he mumbles.

He doesn't blush.

He just accepts his fate, of course, he would this would happen, Johnny was...well, he was picking him Saturday. Max smiles to himself and covers his face.


End file.
